The Nairobi Securities Exchange is keen to list agri-based state firms even as the government prepares to privatise at least ten entities within the next one year.
This widens its target from an initial list of profit making entities, mainly in the financial and energy sectors.
"The government should consider listing parastatals under agriculture,” NSE chairman Kiprono Kittony told the Star on telephone yesterday.
He singled out Kenya Seed Company Limited as one of potential agencies for listing. This is alongside six struggling millers earlier identified by the government for sale.
They include Sony Sugar, Nzoia, Muhoroni, Miwani and Chemelil sugar companies.
NSE has also suggested privatisation of Kenya Reinsurance Corporation Limited (Kenya Re) in which the government holds a 60 per cent stake.
On Tuesday, President William Ruto said the government will bring six to 10 companies to the market through an Initial Public Offer (IPO), urging the private sector to also list at least five firms.
He spoke during the bell-ringing ceremony to mark the launch of the enhanced NSE Market Place.
"My administration will revitalise the capital markets by privatisation of state owned enterprises, where divestiture is overdue and strategic," said the president.
This puts the likes of Mumias Sugar and East African Portland Cement Company, which are already listed, on the line. The firms have remained in the red, posting consecutive losses.
Efforts to revive the closed Mumias Sugar by a private investor has been mirred in court cases.
NSE also remains keen on sale of profit making entities among them Kenya Pipeline Company and Kenya Ports Authority.
The new drive to sale off state firms started in 2015, when retired President Uhuru Kenyatta appointed a Task Force on Parastatals Reforms, led by his constitutional affairs adviser Abdikadir Mohammed.
Its recommendations included trimming of the number of state agencies from 262 to 187.
Twenty six poorly performing state corporations had already been targeted for privatisation to cut down government spending, mainly continued capital injection.
They included the six sugar millers, Kenya Meat Commission, Development Bank of Kenya, and the Kenya Tourism Development Corporation.
The World Bank and the IMF have been pushing for the sale off of loss making state agencies and merging those with duplicating roles to plug budgetary deficits.
The country has close to 400 State agencies, half of them being regulatory bodies.
The National Treasury estimates that parastatals have a maximum fiscal exposure of Sh1.3 trillion, which equates to 13.6 percent of GDP, putting some of them on permanent bail-out that eats into the public coffers.
Restructuring of state agencies was part of IMF's conditions for access to credit facilities last year, among them a $264 million (Sh31.9 billion) loan for budgetary support during the Covid-19 pandemic period.
“Reforms are being undertaken to improve government effectiveness and proactively manage fiscal risks,”IMF had indicated.
Outgoing National Treasury CS Ukur Yatani has been keen to fold agencies that have remained on the exchequer's bail-out list year in year out, with those with duplicating roles being merged to reduce wastage of resources.
“Some have become a burden,”Ukur said during a past forum in Nairobi.
The last successful privatisation by the government was the Safaricom IPO in 2008.
To stimulate the market further, NSE has asked the government to sell-off some of its shares in already listed firms such as Safaricom, Kenya Airways and KenGen.